Drink Upstream

Bork! Bork! Bork!

IKEA makes me think.

I know, it sounds odd. Shouldn’t there be other, better, Swedish things to think about.? You know, Kikergaard, Abba, or the ever popular Smörgåsbord… Alas, those were not on my mind this weekend. Instead, I was pondering that great big, blue box up in whitey-town (my affectionate term for Frisco, the place for people that think Plano and Richardson are soooo 1990’s)…IKEA.

 

The wife and I made our quarterly pilgrimage up that way this weekend, and when I wasn’t taken aback by the sheer scope of the joint, I got to thinking about the people that were admiring the reasonably-priced wares held within. I came to the conclusion that IKEA represents both the best and the worst that the good old US of A has to offer.

 

On one hand, I noticed that IKEA is a place where everyone is on equal footing. It’s a place that offers visually appealing and reasonably sturdy goods at a price nearly everyone can afford to pay. You see all kinds of folks at IKEA. There are your typical wealthy white suburbanites rubbing elbows with lower-income minorities of every stripe. There are your overpaid, urban yuppies, hobnobbing with lower-income white folk from small towns. It’s really cool to see such an unusually level playing field.

 

On the other hand, sometimes IKEA feels like a great big temple to consumerism. It’s crowded, kids are hollering (…only the kids that didn’t get stuck in “Tiny Town" by their folks, but that’s another post.), folks are frustrated, and interested in one thing only….more stuff. I know that these features are not unique to IKEA, you see similar behaviors and damn near any store you visit, large or small, but I think the size and scope of IKEA make the nastier side of consumerism stand out like a neon cross in Westminster Abby.

 

Any thoughts?

Minjas Rule.

Genius.

The Verdict: Oink - Los Angeles Times

A fantastic quote describing a food critic's experience with KFC's oft maligned "Famous Bowls". 

Link: The Verdict: Oink - Los Angeles Times.

It's like throwing up in reverse.

Random unformed thought bits

George Ou reports that he and at least 60,000 other electricity customers in California are without power because of high demand caused by record heat in his area.

The founder of Greenpeace announced he's ok with nuclear power, and that he even likes the idea.  He also notes that 30+% of the U.S. CO2 emissions (or 10% of world emissions) come from coal fired power plants in the U.S.

It apparently takes 10 years to build a nuclear power industry, and that doesn't count government regulation.

Fear for Show

I have long thought that the Bush administration does alot of fear mongering solely so that they can make a show of enhancing security to "fix the problem."

For example, I've yet to hear any security expert stand up and say, "All that extra security at airports would have prevented the September 11th hijackings, had it been in place."

Here's what appears to be yet another example of creating fear so that an insufficient solution to the supposed problem can be created for political show:

Link: Schneier on Security: Passport Rules Between the U.S. and Canada.

Important international issues...or video games.

If you are like me, you have often wondered what the French do in their spare time.  Here's the definitive answer....

After all of that I'm sure they were le tired.

Matt's Dangerous Suggestion for the Week!

Great for children!

How To: Q-Tip Gun.

Summer Reading

It seems that whenever I visit Dallas, Matt always asks, "What're you reading now?"  We compare books.  Usually he's reading something much better than I am.  I go home and add a few to my Amazon list.  Same old song and dance.

But I don't know what most of our contributors read.  I mean, I figure Jordan's starting in on a new biography of the Gipper, and Kurt's got his Korean to Russian grammar well-worn by now.  But what else?

As for me, I've been reading The Federalist Papers, edited by Clinton Rossiter, and The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates (Ralph Ketcham, ed.) thanks to Jordan's post about the Founding Fathers.  Also, a little Anne Lamott never hurt, and so I'm reading Crooked Little Heart, which is packed tight with her signature beautiful language, but also too many narrative voices (I get lost easily).  I also just finished Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.  Very good, but I never felt that emotional hook that it plays to at the end.

That's all just a sampling.  There are others, but I thought these were enough to get the ball rolling.  I wanna hear from the rest of y'all.

The Big House

I haven't posted in a good long while, so I'm due.  My apologies, I've been out of town on a long mission trip with the senior highs from CCPC and then back in the office making a (failing attempt) at getting back up to speed after my return.

This was the first mission trip I've taken with CCPC.  While the traditional lessons of service, humility, grace, and charity were certainly present, they weren't the ones that hit me over the head.

For this trip, we weren't in a remote desert location, or on a Native American reservation ensconced in poverty, or in a flood-ravaged disaster area.  We were in South St. Louis County, Missouri (just south of St. Louis proper.)  The people we were serving, by and large, weren't lifetime (or 'lifestyle') poverty dwellers.  Mostly, they were either senior citizens or mentally handicapped folks who, for one reason or another, were cited for code violations.  Most of them were under threat of eviction from their homes if they didn't get some repairs and/or cleanup done.

I'm not going to go into this theme in this post, but it's a bit ironic that the government will evict these people from their homes (thus making them homeless.)  As homeless people, it will cost the city much more in various services (shelters, public health, etc) than it would to just fix their homes for them.  But, that's a whole different discussion than the one I want to have here.

The lesson that struck me on this trip was one of community and hospitality.  And it hit me in lots of ways.

a sideways look at the world cup

wow, did you see what zidane did?  geeesh!  what flipped in his mind?  or... what did materazzi say to him that sparked his violent side to make him lose control like that???  really, it doesn't matter what materazzi said, we all expected something different from zidane.  that kind of thing is what you expect from someone like rooney, not zidane.

oh, and, yeah, italy win on penalty kicks.  but hey, who expected france to win a penalty kick match with barthez in goal???

wow, zidane, in the world cup final, up and headbutting a guy like that.